Distribution: If you had permission to take any of my other stories, you can use this one as well. Just let me know where it's going. Others, just ask and I will most likely give permission.
Feedback: Do you even have to ask by this point?
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss, the WB, Mutant Enemy, (the evil)FOX, and whoever else came up with them. If they belonged to me the show would be drastically different. Please don't sue, I'm only a high-schooler without a job anyways. The title comes from a song by LeAnn Rimes and Elton John. I also quote lyrics from this song in the story.
Rating: Same as the TV show
Spoilers: Set during the third season episode "Dead Man's Party ." Small spoilers for that episode, nothing else after that has happened.
Concept: The mask thingy raises the dead, right? And Angel's dead, right? [Well, kinda] I'll give you three guesses as to what happens in this fic....
Author's Notes: This is my twelth fic in the I'm-changing-a-third-season-episode-so-that-BuffyandAngel-end-up-together series. I'm more than half done!

Buffy tumbled out into the yard hot on the tail of the mask-wearing person. Several of her friends had already been frozen, and she had no idea how to stop this person who had once been her mom's friend.

Suddenly, in the mist of everything, she spotted something that made her completely lose it. Angel.

In the middle of the fight, with all the zombies swarming around him, was her Angel.

He rushed to her side, putting a hand on her shoulder. She shrank away from him when she felt that he was warm. This wasn't Angel. It was some trick! And in the instant that she was staring at Angel, Giles yelled out to her. "The eyes, Buffy. Destroy her eyes."

Buffy heard him and turned to face the mask, only to see a blinding white light. She couldn't move! She had been frozen. She knew then that all was lost, no one else could take her out.

Angel looked at a frozen Buffy in shock. He didn't understand how he had come to be here or what was going on, he only knew they faced a demon and that Buffy was incapable of moving.

With Giles's words echoing in his head, he charged at the mask with his eyes closed. He ran into the woman, forcing her to the ground. And just as he could tell her eyes were about to flash again, he put his hands over them. She released her power and it mirrored back to her, destroying both the woman and the mask she wore.

Buffy unfroze in that instant and looked down at him in shock. Angel looked into her eyes and said "I love you."

She had just opened her mouth to answer when he was gone. In the next instant she looked around and noticed that all the other dead people had disappeared too.

"NO!!!" She screamed. "Bring him back! You bastards! BRING HIM BACK!!!" Buffy shouted louder and louder, her fists waving furiously at the heavens. "You can't do that! You can't bring him back and then..." Buffy trailed off as she felt a hand on her shoulder, and promptly spun around to deck the unfortunate person, who just happened to be Xander. She decked him hard, and he flew backwards. Buffy followed him, hitting blindly at his chest again and again, sobbing, barely able to see. Xander reached out his arms as he attempted to stop her with a move he often saw in the movies.

He finally caught her hands and stopped her fighting, at the same time drawing her towards him and putting his arms around her. Buffy hugged him with crushing force. "Shh...it's okay."

"No it's not. I swear they hate me."

"Who does?" Giles asked softly, speaking for all the rest of the Scoobies who were gathered around her and Xander.

"The Gods, the Heavens, the Powers, the Universe....Whatever you want to call it, it hates me and wants me to suffer. They keep taking him away..." She blubbered.

Willow understood exactly what her friend was talking about, the others just looked at her strangely. "That was really Angel? I thought I saw him, but..." Willow trailed off.

"Yeah, it was. The stupid mask must have somehow raised him too. They bring him back to me for 30 seconds to save me and then they take him again. Probably right back to hell. How can they? After all the good he's done....all the times he's helped me and saved me and....." Buffy looked up and asked in a small voice, "Am I cursed?"

"No, of course not." Giles answered at once.

"Then why the hell does everything bad always happen to me? I'm the Slayer! I'm the good-guy. I'm fighting for them. Why do they keep tearing away from me the one thing I don't want to live without?" Buffy was near hysterics.

"Is it written in the stars? Are we paying for some crime? Is this all that we are good for, just this stretch of mortal time? Is this God's experiment, in which we have no say? In which we're given paradise, but only for a day?" Buffy and the others stared in shock at Oz as he softly recited the lines of something.

"It's a song." He defended himself a moment later when no one said anything. "It's perfect." Buffy whispered as she got up and faced him. "Tell me more of it."

Oz reached for her hand and she took his. He started back towards the house, softly reciting more lines to her as she followed him meekly.

The others shared curious looks for a moment and then followed the two into Buffy's house.

**

The next morning, Buffy knocked on Giles' door excitedly. She was practically beaming. It was such a change from the hysterical girl of last night that Giles almost couldn't believe it.

"Buffy..." He began, only to be interrupted by her saying excitedly.

"Giles, Giles I had a dream last night. It was prophetic, I can just tell. I know it was. It...."

"Why do you think that, Buffy?" Willow asked from behind him. It was only then that Buffy realized that Xander, Willow, Oz, and Cordelia were all in Giles living room. They had obviously been there all night, probably talking about her.

"Oh, hi guys."

They all responded to her brightly. She looked again at Xander, the events of last night flooding back to her. "Xand, sorry for, you know..." Buffy began softly.

"That's okay." Xander said just as softly. "Willow explained a few things to all of us last night, and I finally get it. I mean, not in the true sense of..."

"Why was Angel, um, not Angelus. When he came back I mean." Willow cut him off before his foot could reenter his mouth.

Buffy looked down at her feet, her high momentarily gone.

"Buffy?" Giles came up to put a hand on her shoulder, which she placed her own hand over gratefully.

"Angel, was Angel. When I sent him to hell. Your spell worked at the last minute Will."

Everyone looked at her in shock. Finally they understood why she had run away.

"Just as the portal was about to open....and I was going to stab a sword through him, his eyes, they flashed golden. And he staggered backwards. I thought it was a trick at first, but his eyes...." Buffy trailed off as tears welled in her eyes. "He started talking, and I could tell he didn't remember anything from the past few months. All the time he was Angelus was forgotten. He just got worried that I was hurt....."

Willow got up from her seat and went to put an arm around her best friend. Buffy leaned against her gratefully.

"But it, it was too late. And I had to....so I told him that I loved him, and I kissed him, and then I sent him to hell." Buffy whispered, crying as month's of bottled up emotions poured out of her. "He trusted me so much. I told him to close his eyes....so I didn't have to look in them when I betrayed him....and he did. Just like that. He didn't understand anything that was happening....he didn't know why I was standing over him, crying, with a huge sword in my hands...he just trusted me. The look in his eyes when I stabbed him...." Buffy broke down.

Willow pulled her fully into her arms as the Slayer cried her heart out. When Buffy finally looked back up, her eyes were red and puffy. Tears still trailed down her face and she tried to wipe them away.

"But that, that's not why I came. I know how to bring Angel back. I dreamed it." She made no apology for her outburst, wanting only to forget it.

"You what?" Xander screamed.

"I know how to do it. Giles, do you have "The Kinfoar Legends?"" Buffy ignored Xander.

"Yes, I, I think I do. Why?"

"Cause I saw them in my dream. Somewhere in the middle of the third book there's a legend that tells of how to redeem someone like Angel from death and from hell."

"What is it?" Willow asked as Giles went to get the book.

"Well, have you ever read the Narnia chronicles?" Buffy tried to think of how to describe it.

The gang all nodded.

"It's pretty much the same as a part of one of those. Where Aslan dies in the place of Edmund."

"Someone has to die for Angel?"

"Not really. What's the exact wording...um....it's when Aslan is quoting about the deeper magick...."

Xander picked up for her. "It's something about when a willing person who has done no great wrong is killed in a traitor's stead that death itself will begin to work in reverse."

"Yeah, that's it." Buffy said, looking at him gratefully. "Well, that's what happened. Angel willingly went to hell...well....kinda. And since Angel hasn't done anything wrong, he is being punished in Angelus's stead. So death will work in reverse, all we have to do is acknowledge it by using a spell to start the whole thing in motion."

"You're sure?" Oz spoke up.

"Yeah, cause I don't want him soulless again and after me." Cordelia had to add.

"He's not soulless."

"And he never will be again." Willow said softly.

"WHAT??" Buffy looked at her in shock.

"I didn't want to say anything since it didn't matter and would only hurt you, but, um, I cast the Ritual of Restoration, not some vamped-up curse. All it did was give him his soul. There's no conditions to it since it was done in love and not revenge."

Buffy let out a little squeal and hurled herself back into Willow's arms.

She hugged the girl, hard, until Willow whispered, "Air becoming an issue." Buffy quickly released her but couldn't stop beaming.

And in that instant Giles returned with the book, already having it open to scan the middle sections. "I think I found it." He said as he began reading aloud:

"Evil shall be returned to Good,
But for the Chosen there is not the time
To love again the Good she knew.
Willingly he goes below,
Human again for the sake of death,
Punished in his demon's stead.
But since he has against none
Lifted up his hand;
All it shall take is his innocent death
And a token of his soul.
This shalt return him to the arms of She
Whom the stars have decreed
Belongs to him for eternity."

There was silence in the room for a moment, then Willow spoke. "But that's not a spell. It doesn't say how to do it."

"There's more below the verse itself. It says that the Chosen need only hold the token in her hand as she recites this verse and he shall be brought back to her." Giles replied.

"It also says that he's human." Buffy whispered. "He was warm when he touched my arm last night."

"Yes, all vampires become human once they are killed because as a vampire they couldn't truly be punished. But a human can be." Willow said, recalling a book she had once read that in.

"And he'll stay that way when he comes back?" Buffy asked.

"I think so, but we still don't know how to do that."

"Yeah, what exactly is the 'token of his soul' anyway?" Cordelia asked.

"My guess would be this." Buffy said, pulling a ring off of her finger.

"What is it?" Giles asked, leaning in to look closer at it when he realized Buffy wasn't about to let go of it.

"It's called a claddagh ring. It's an old Irish custom, Angel told me that it stands for friendship, loyalty, and love." She said, indicating the three separate symbols on the ring. "What he didn't exactly tell me, but what I found out later when a jeweler saw it, is that they were customarily used in old Ireland as wedding rings."

"I'd say that counts for a token of the soul." Willow said with awe.

"I sure think so. Okay, I'm gonna do this." Buffy said as she took the book. "Anyone who doesn't want to see Angel should probably leave now." She said, looking directly at Xander, then Cordelia. Her eyes turned finally to Giles.

When none of the three of them moved, she knelt down on the floor of the room and held her left palm up, setting the ring on in. She held the book with her other hand and began to read.

"Evil shall be returned to Good,
But for the Chosen there is not the time
To love again the Good she knew."

Everyone else in the room took a step back as a white light began to build around Buffy. It seemed to grow outward from the ring she held.

"Willingly he goes below,
Human again for the sake of death,
Punished in his demon's stead.
But since he has against none
Lifted up his hand;"

Buffy was by this time enveloped in the while light. It now began to move outward, making a bulge in the circle of light so that it extended a few feet further in the direction she was facing than it did anywhere else.

"All it shall take is his innocent death
And a token of his soul."

The light around her claddagh turned ruby red, everything else stayed a blinding white. And Buffy noticed, slowly, that in the clear air in front of her when the light shone, there was another pinpoint of red light beginning to form.

"This shalt return him to the arms of She
Whom the stars have decreed
Belongs to him for eternity."

As Buffy said the word eternity, Angel suddenly appeared before her, dressed in the same black clothes he had worn when she sent him to hell. All the white light vanished, their rings still glowed ruby red.

"Buffy? I'm back again? What happened." Angel was confused.

"You're back for good this time Angel. We found a spell to get you out." Buffy said as she drew him into her arms.

He clung to her, almost afraid to let go after all that had happened to him. "I love you too." She whispered in his ear as a huge smile graced her face. Not only did she have Angel back, but she could tell that her friends were already starting to accept him again. And after knowing what she had gone through they were no longer mad at her.

Everything was perfect once again. Or as perfect as it ever can be for a Slayer and vampire who are in love.

Not caring in the least that their friends were crowded around them, Buffy and Angel came together in an earth-shattering kiss. Nothing would ever separate them again.

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